Zhang Xiaoguang, Wang Yaping (China's second female astronaut)
and Commander Nie Haisheng will dock with the Tiangong-1 space lab
during their 15 day mission, China's longest manned mission to
date. The mission, called "Shenzhou-10", was
announced in November and is China's fifth manned space
mission.

The Tiangong-1 space lab is a 10.5 metre space module, the first
brick in China's plans to build its own space station. It is currently being used to
help China master the docking technologies necessary for operating
a full blown space station.

Since China's first manned mission in 2003, the country has been
playing catch up on more than 50 years of Russian and American
space expertise.

With the ISS on course to be decommissioned -- and crashed into the ocean -- in 2020, around the same time
that China aims to bring its own station online, it's unclear
whether the US will come to regret shunning Chinese involvement on
the ISS.

An unmanned Chinese mission to the Moon is also on the cards,
though Nasa has warned China not to disturb the sites of the Apollo
moon landings.